


pillar of salt

by MsThing (Hieiandshino)



Series: United States of Multifandom: English Edition [6]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Canonical Character Death, First Kiss, Gen, M/M, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hieiandshino/pseuds/MsThing
Summary: What happened between Richie and Stanley after the Losers fell apart. And beyond.(United States of Multifandom. Prompt 19:A ship that is canon for you. Unrevised work)





	pillar of salt

**Author's Note:**

> _It_ does not belong to me.
> 
> This fanfic was unrevised, so please forgive any mistakes.
> 
>  **I changed the movie's timeline a little bit** , meaning that they are still in June when they enter the house on Neilbolt street.

The Uris’s porch is clean and well kept and it’s one of the reasons why Richie likes it better than his own. The sundown turns the wood darker while painting the grass a gold that reminds him of Stan’s curls. Richie doesn’t dare to stare at Stan’s curls right now, but later on his life, when he will be old and famous, he’ll never forget the golden grass, the dark porch, the way he felt Stan’s heat oh his cheek, right next to the cold the ice pack radiates to stop his face from becoming swollen.

Bill punched him in the face a few hours ago.

Ben left to his own house, but Stan and Richie kept going until they reached Stan’s house and now they are here.

Stan doesn’t ask if Richie is okay. He knows he’s not. They aren’t. There is a killer clown that is not only a clown and they are on It's blacklist, now more than ever. And Bill, Big Bill, their leader, fearless and kind and the best of them, just punched Richie in the face for telling the truth.

( _Georgie is dead_ )

They are all alone. Now more than ever.

“Want to stay the night?” Stan asks and his voice is so quiet. Richie wants to ask why he never told him of this woman in the picture, why he never told anyone, but Richie in particular. He wouldn’t make fun of Stan for fearing It. Much. He would joke, that is true, but he wouldn’t ridicule him. Richie is, after all, obnoxious, but never cruel.

( _not with Stan, not with the Jew who killed Jesus, Stan, the man. Never him, never him. Richie could never be cruel to him and Richie doesn’t know why yet_ )

“Yeah.” Richie says instead and that is it.

.

Two is not a large group.

Stan and Richie could be three if Eddie was available, but his mother is a wall and they are just two poor scrawny kids. They can’t compete. So they learn to walk around, close the distance between them. Together they ride their bikes at the same pace ( _Bill was stronger and Silver was faster_ ), fill the silence with looks ( _Eddie and Richie would always banter then_ ) and read books of birds and ventriloquism ( _Ben read too much, so he would always finish first_ ) or trade comic books.

Summer passes slowly when they are only two and they have to re-learn how to do everything. How to play. How to laugh. How to survive.

Kids keep disappearing. When they find out, Richie always spends the nights with Stan, linking their hands as they go to sleep, reassurance.

.

They don’t talk about.

Richie wants to. Wants to talk about the lady-nightmare. How does she look ( _how he’ll protect Stan from something he doesn’t know how it looks like?_ ), what does she do, when he first met It. Stan is in denial, however, will be all his life, and so he does not give Richie and opening.

Sometimes, however, he wants to look Richie in the eye and ask what Richie saw in the house. Stanley remembers shadows near a window, desperate shadows, two of them. Too tall to be Eddie’s, so.

So.

Stan keeps his silence and wonders.

.

The nights are warm and scary. Richie used to like it. He used to stare at the stars from his window, thinking of the future and how he will be long gone from this hell hole. Away from this fucking town and this fucking family, drunk and broken and messy. He’ll have an amazing job ( _he really will_ ) and he will be popular with girls ( _not as much as he would like now, but by then he will prefer guys anyway_ ) and Stan will be able to come to his house whenever he wants him to be there ( _this will not happen, Richie, I’m so sorry_ ).

Now, when he looks at his window, it's not for long. Richie is sure he will see the clown and be taken. Fourth of July is nearing.

.

Stan speaks in Hebrew, studying under his breath and Richie feels he could fall asleep with his voice, talking secrets he’ll never learn. They are in a park, people are around them, real people so there will be no one out there for them ( _they hope, they hope_ ). He’s getting better. Stan doesn’t stutter as much, doesn’t need to pause to remember a passage, is speaking a few parts clearer. Richie doesn’t understand, but he can hear. He can hear the difference, feel the difference, understand the difference.

Maybe this is why Jews think they are maturing by saying a few words. Maybe it is true.

Richie, meanwhile, enjoys the sun. Or rides his bike around Stanley. Or tries to repeat his words, Hebrew, and failing miserably.

.

“You’re doing it wrong.” Stanley says it. “You’re doing it—”

Richie dies.

Stan sighs. “See?”

Richie glares at him. “Maybe you could cheer on me, instead of fucking criticize my flawless skills!”

Stan frowns.

“What skills?”

.

Richie sometimes feels brave. Brave enough to go after Bill and apologize for Georgie ( _even though he is right_ ) or to go after that fucking clown or _do something_. And on these days, he looks at Stan, staring intently at a bird, trying to take all in, and feels brave enough to lean in and kiss Stanley Uris right on the mouth.

But he never does.

.

Stan slowly re-learns to laugh. Richie slowly re-learns to say shit to anyone who is interested. Before they were all so quiet, in anger and in fear, but now things are getting better.

Fourth of July comes and goes. Richie is ( _almost_ ) not afraid. Summer is ending, Stanley is ( _almost_ ) eager. Kids keep disappearing, but not them, not them.

As long as they are together. No kid was taken when they were together, so this must mean something. And if they die, they die together.

( _there is some beauty in that_ )

.

Richie practices his voice and Stan watches him. He almost stutters like Bill would, but he doesn’t. His lips tremble a little, though, and it shows. Stan can see it from this angle, from this distance. _What it means_ , Stan wonders, though he already knows.

He has always craved attention but doesn’t know what to do when he gets it. This attention — devoted, mesmerized, Stanley’s — and it is so sad and so funny. Stan loves it. It’s something separation has given him. Something that would not exist if Eddie were there ( _always having a comeback to keep Richie going_ ), if Billy were there ( _bee-bee-beep beep, Ree-chee_ ).

“Richie.” He whispers. The wind is loud here and for a moment he thinks Richie did not listen to him. However, he finishes his Irish Cop voice ( _terrible, terrible_ ) and looks at Stan, blinking owlishly at him.

Stanley smiles. “Do your British guy impersonation, I think it’s getting better.”

It’s not, but there is no one to tell Richie or Stan otherwise.

.

Stan’s hair is weird, almost as if a cow had licked it. His mother seems to like it, so Stan must have kept it this way because of this. He seems so sure up there, speaking to his people and Richie.

Richie doesn’t understand anything he is saying but smiles every time Stan looks at him ( _many times, almost all the time_ ).

Richie thinks. Of Bill and of Eddie and of Mike and of Ben and of Beverly. Eddie and Ben are probably alone ( _will they be alive when Richie comes home? Or he will find out after he takes this oversized ugly as fuck suit that they are missing?_ ), Mike is probably doing his things and Bill and Beverly are probably trying to save the world.

They always are.

Richie closes his eyes. Sighs or huffs, he doesn’t really know. He is feeling brave again.

He opens his eyes and Stan is staring at him. There are no curls on his hair today. He looks different, less Stanley, more Bill. In his eyes, there is courage too.

.

When the sun is setting and they kiss, Richie can almost forget the danger. The fear. Bill and Bev and Ben and Mike ( _but not Eddie_ ).

It’s chaste and wonderful and they flush and can’t look each other in the eye for a few seconds. They are both smiling. Richie wants to mess Stanley’s hair and when he gives in Stan laughs and laughs and laughs.

They kiss again and they are golden like the grass, like the sunshine, like Stan has always been.

It can’t last.

.

Bill comes to him in a day Richie is feeling almost brave. Richie stares at Bill and anger floods in again and he becomes sharp — sharp tone and sharp edges, something he thought Stanley had kissed away from him — until Bill tells him about Beverly.

Richie trembles, but he goes with him.

.

Stan is still screaming about being left behind, about being left alone when they ( _Richie_ ) promised this wouldn’t happen. He is bleeding and he is scared and he is scarred and Richie’s voice is just his own here as he whispers he is sorry and he won’t do that again.

Richie clutches Stan’s hand with his own, both of them, and his forehead touches his cheek. Blood warms it, stains it and if he could he would become one with Stan right there.

He’s sorry, he is so fucking sorry. He won’t leave him again. Won’t ever leave Stanley. Won’t. Won’t. Won’t.

He will. He already did it once.

.

And then—

“Bill!”

And Richie runs.

.

Stan’s eyes are dry and hollow as his parents fuss over him and ask what happened, how did this happen, who did this, when he did it. There are scars all over his face, where the woman, the clown, It bit him. The doctors work fast, eyes amazed — _as if a shark bit him!_ , one says —, and Richie finds it funny. He wonders what their face would be if they knew the whole truth.

They wouldn’t believe. Richie himself doesn’t, sometimes. Stan, well, he knows he doesn’t want to believe, but it happened.

Richie wants to reach out and take his hand and assure him that everything will be fine now. But adults are like walls, hard and tall, and all he can do is watch them wonder and ask and make everything worse.

.

“Do you hate me?” Richie asks the dark. He can barely see the hospital bed Stan is lying, finding comfort in the darkness (how?) as Richie stands by the door, soaked in the soft, unnatural light from the hallway.

Stan doesn’t answer. It’s enough.

.

They don’t see each other for the rest of the summer. It isn’t much, to be sincere. A few days? A week at most. July has come and went and, with it, the day of Richie’s disappearance. Now it sounds like a dream, the missing poster and the house on Neilbolt street. So long ago.

Richie fills Stan’s absence with the others' presence. Eddie and Bill the most. It feels right, as it should always be. He is complete and it pains him to admit there was a hole when it was just Stan and him.

“He needs time”, Bev says, after she finds Richie watching birds by the Barrens. “If he saw what I saw, then—”

“What did you see?” He asks.

She does not answer. Richie wants to ask her if Ben’s kiss was enough for Bev to come back from her dazed mind but doesn’t.

He wonders if his kiss would have the same effect with Stan.

.

The day before Bev leaves, they all come together again. Stanley is quieter, his bandages are now just clean — that first time, it soon soaked with blood, after the doctors prodded and cleaned and did a million different things that Eddie would be able to explain in every detail, though with nicer names — and he still looks very funny like this. Nobody mentions it, not even Richie.

Together they make a promise of coming back if necessary, though everyone is there praying that it does not come to this.

They know god doesn’t exist. The turtle couldn’t help them then.

( _and what does that even mean?_ )

.

Stanley is the first to leave, joking about how he hates each one of them. Richie is the only one who believes it.

.

It was not the last time he saw Stan, but it was the last time he saw  _his_ Stan. What they had during that summer imploded together with It and no matter how many times they were alone — slowly each one of the Losers left the town with their families to never come back, to never remember — there was no way to get back at it.

His Stan liked birds and bugs, Richie and fishes. This Stan prefers his house, encyclopedia and to study to have a future. A real future. He never mumbled in Hebrew, he never kissed Richie, he never quite recovered from what he saw when he was being eaten.

And Richie hurts and watches and hurts and watches. He is Lot’s wife, looking at Sodom, but he doesn’t know when he’ll crumble, when he’ll lose his feelings too, when he’ll just become a pile of salt, forever wanting, forever watching, forever losing.

.

They were trying to survive, Richie will understand much later, when Stanley Uris finally leaves town with his family. Every day could be the last and they used it as best as possible. That time was like a photograph you could only remember — the moment, the scene, the person next to you — but could never go back. What mattered, the smell, the golden tone of the grass, of them, the sound of their laughter, the taste of each other, was long lost.

But it was love nonetheless. It was love, love, love. Pure love, full devotion, sweet discover. And Richie may not remember anymore, because he is far away from Derry too, now, but he remembers this feeling — the one he always thinks he has again but never has the same taste, the same weight.

.

Many will come and much more will go and all of them will say that someone made a number on Richie. And he will laugh while his heart clenches and he will wonder who, who gave him this, who took this from him, who broke him.

There will never be an answer, except the sun going down and a memory of him turning into gold for the first time.

.

Twenty-seven years later, when he is old and famous, when the call comes and the contact lenses fall from his eyes, Richie remembers. And when he reaches Derry, all he wants is to forget.

.

Twenty-seven years later, when the blood is almost all out, Stanley remembers Richie. His eyes were always so big because of those glasses, so Stan knew everything he felt. Everything. For him, mostly, because Richie was always romantic gestures hidden by stupid jokes, loud voice( _s_ ) and ( _broken_ ) promises.

( _like when he said he would always be there for Stanley but didn’t. Didn’t and she got Stan_ )

Maybe, if he had remembered Richie ( _soft kisses on 4th July, trembling and so afraid Stanley started to fear for him too_ ) first, he would not be bleeding out on his bathtub, his wife downstairs not knowing what is happened, what will happen, what has happened. Stanley is almost sorry for her, for Richie, for everyone but—

they left him once he looked up and he was alone not alone the woman was there the woman in the picture and she ate him but didn’t but she did she ate him and he saw it he felt it he knows what it is to be a crop under a pestilence hunger gaze what it feels to be eaten and he was there and he was all alone until he wasn’t but then it was too late too late too late Richie left him

— he’s not that strong.

He was once, and It got him. Took all out, left only bite marks and fear. Took Richie away from him and left this bitterness inside, the feeling of betrayal, because it was Richie who called him and asked him to go and fight It and left him behind when he had said many times he wouldn’t.

But it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to regret, too late to forget, too late to go back.

.

On a paper he finds inside his red Camaro, _Stanley Uris_ is written on his calligraphy. He drew it so carefully that even now he sees the devotion he gave these two words.

 _What do they mean?_ , he wonders. What do they mean? An odd question, when many would ask themselves who is that person. However, the name doesn’t matter, only the feeling. He is never careful when he writes, but here he knows he took his time, as if to not make a mistake, to not smudge the ink. To remember something. Someone.

Stanley Uris is dead, he finds out much later. Suicide. Survived by his wife. No kids.

Richie still doesn’t remember but doesn’t forget either.

And after all this time, his heart keeps breaking.

.

On his last breath, Stanley Uris forgives Richie Tozier and loves him as dearly as he did in that summer. In that life.

**Author's Note:**

> Eight years ago I was finishing It and crying over my OTP (Stozier) and the lack of fanfic. I wrote two, I think, and moved on. Now they are back and the works are so beautiful it inspired me to write them again ;^;
> 
> Hope anyone who ships them likes this one~ I'm not sure about the end, though, because it just kept going and I had to put a stop to it.
> 
> [Requests open!](http://nightmareduringxmas.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
